Canine Cognitive Dysfunction (CCD), also known as Dog dementia, is a neurodegenerative disease that gets worse over time. The risk of getting CCD goes up by more than 50% every year a dog lives past the age of ten, and the risk is almost 6.5 times higher for inactive dogs than for very active ones.

The latest research, which was reported in Scientific Reports, implies that lifetime predictions could help vets decide whether to perform cognitive disorder screening in dogs.

Similar to humans, cognitive function declines with age in dogs, and those who have CCD may exhibit symptoms like memory loss, a lack of spatial awareness, changed social relationships and disturbed sleep.

Dogs aged 11 to 12 years old had CCD rates estimated at 28%, whereas dogs aged 15 to 16 years old had rates estimated at 68%.

In the USA’s Dog Aging Project, a long-term study of the aging of pet dogs, Sarah Yarborough and colleagues looked into the frequency of Dog Dementia in a large sample of companion dogs. The sample comprised 15,019 dogs in total.

The Health and Life Experience Survey (which asks about health status and physical activity) and the Canine Social and Learned Behavior Survey (which asks about CCD-related issues such as whether the dog failed to recognize familiar faces) were both completed by owners between December 2019 and 2020.

The lifespans of dogs were divided into quartiles, with 19.5% of them living to their very last day, 24.4% to their third, 27% to their first, and 29.1% to their second. CCD was identified in 1.4% of dogs.

According to the authors, the likelihood of being diagnosed with CCD increased by 68% for every extra year of age in dogs older than 10 years when age alone was taken into account.

Taking into account other variables like health problems, sterilisation, exercise levels, and breed type, the likelihood of a dog having CCD increased by 52% for each additional year of life.

The odds of CCD were 6.47 times greater in dogs whose owners stated they were not active compared to those whose owners said they were very active for dogs of the same breed, age, and health and sterilisation status, according to the authors.

The authors do warn that because their study was cross-sectional in nature, it did not prove a causal link between inactivity and CCD and that cognitive impairment may actually cause decreased activity.

They come to the conclusion that more study is necessary to comprehend Dog dementia.

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